The Kellerman Variations: Witness
by Cucumber
Summary: A new witness surfaces in the Luther Mahoney shooting. Is she going to get Kellerman into even more trouble or will she exonerate him?
1. 1

Note: I wrote this all in one long burst. It's not very good, and frankly, most of it is not that relevant. If you don't want to bother reading the whole thing but still want to get the gist of the story, read only Chapters 1, 2, 10, and 11. (But there are some cute bits if you do read the whole things.)

This takes place after the end of S6, which I actually didn't see, so please excuse any inconsistancies with what happened, just take it as poetic license.

A young woman walked nervously through the door of the homicide squadroom and didn't go very far into the room. She seemed transfixed by the people, the sounds, the smells, the energy. Finally, after she had been there for a few moments, Kay Howard noticed her.

"Miss, is there something I can help you with?" Kay asked. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

"Yes," the young woman said, her voice hoarse and low. She cleared her throat and started again. "Yes, thank you. I need to speak to someone about the death of Luther Mahoney."

Kay gave the woman the once over but wasn't sure what to make of her. "If you're a reporter, you should go to the fourth floor and speak to someone in public relations. Nobody here is going to give you a statement."

The young woman's face lit up. "Oh, I'm not a reporter! I mean, I was in college—for the student newspaper—but I'm not one now! No, I'm a witness!"

"A witness, huh?" Kay was beginning to think that this girl was some kind of nut. She'd humor her for about one more minute before showing her the door. "That's not possible. There were four people in that room when Luther Mahoney was killed. He's dead, the other three are cops. You aren't an eyewitness, so why don't you go—"

"I never said I was in the room," the girl interrupted. She rummaged around in her knapsack, pulled out a pair of binoculars, and held them up in triumph. "I live across the street from Luther Mahoney and I saw the whole thing." She paused. "I saw how it _went down_."

Now Kay didn't know what to believe. The girl could still be a nut. After all, it was nearly a year after Mahoney's death—why did she take so long to come forward? And what really was the likelihood that she saw anything? On the other hand, this girl didn't bear any of the usual markings of a nut—she was clean and well groomed, in fact, her clothes looked expensive. Well, they'd have to if she claimed to be living in Mahoney's upscale neighborhood. She didn't seem overly nervous; didn't talk too much or too little; made eye contact; was college educated.

"Here's what I'm going to do," Kay said. "You wait right here, and I'm going to see who's available."

She walked briskly to the interrogation room thinking, I may be the sergeant, but this is not my problem, not my case. Let Pembleton decide if this girl is a nut or not.


	2. 2

She opened the door to the box just in time to see Pembleton handing papers and a pen to Kellerman. Kellerman looked ashen.

"This is your statement. Read it over carefully, make any changes you need to, initial the bottom of each page, then sign and date the last one," Pembleton instructed.

"I know the drill," Kellerman said. It was the smallest attempt to salvage some dignity and it wasn't working. Kay felt like she was intruding on a private moment, but she walked in and closed the door behind her. Pembleton turned around and Kellerman looked up at her expectantly.

"You might not want to sign anything just yet, Kellerman," she said. "I've got a girl out here claiming to be a witness. You might want to hear what she has to say first."

At the word "witness," both men's eyes widened.

"A witness?" Pembleton roared. "How on God's green earth could there be a witness!"

Shrugging, Kay said, "I don't know. But she's here, and she's brought the binoculars she says she used to watch the shooting with."

"I see. She's got a little _Rear Window_ thing going on," Pembleton said.

"It's your call, Detective. But if she's a nut, you'll be able to crack her and still make it to lunch on time."

"Fine. Put her in room two. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Right," Kay said, and left.

"I'm going with you," Kellerman said to Pembleton.

"You most certainly are not. After what you've just told me, you're lucky I'm not sending you down to central booking."

"But she could be a witness, an honest to goodness, _impartial_ witness. . . ."

"Yes, all the more reason for you not to be there." Pembleton paused, studied Kellerman's hopeful face, and relented. "You can watch. But you will have no direct contact with this girl. Agreed?"

"Fine. You're the boss."

"Yes. Yes, I am," Pembleton said.

Pembleton entered interrogation room two with a neutral expression on his face. "Hi, I'm Detective Frank Pembleton," he said.

"Hi!" the girl said. "I'm glad you had time to talk to me. I remember when I saw it happen I thought for sure you'd be looking for witnesses, but you never were. And now, I've heard about all this stuff that's been happening, I figured I should just come forward."

Pembleton grinned and eased himself into a chair. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Let's not talk about that just yet. How about you first tell me your name and a little about yourself."

"My name, right, how silly of me. I'm Rachel Fishbein. I live at 3400 Eagle Terrace, apartment 15D. I'm twenty-two years old and I graduated from the University of Baltimore last year. I majored in psychology and minored in English. At the moment I don't . . . I'm not working. Well, I am working. On a novel. But that doesn't count, obviously. I mean, I haven't decided what I want to do yet. It's stupid, I know, but I was thinking of going to graduate school then I didn't get the applications in on time, and my parents think I should get a temp job at least until I decide. They're probably right, but—"

Suddenly Frank was glad that his daughter hadn't started talking yet.


	3. 3

"Tell me what your typical day is like." He didn't want to ask it, but he knew he had to. The girl didn't seem like a nut yet, but she didn't seem like she was going to have any important information, either. She was probably just lonely and looking for some attention. He couldn't even bother to think of her as a person, as Rachel, yet.

"That's easy. I'm totally a creature of habit. I get up every day at ten and then I lounge around for a while until lunch. I don't get dressed until after lunch. Then I write, do stuff, and run any errands if my parents leave me a note about it. Sometimes I call my mom at work and we talk. And sometimes I . . . take my binoculars . . . and look at what my neighbors are doing," Rachel said. Even though Pembleton had not appeared even the slightest bit threatening until now, Rachel sensed his authority, like he was her father, and she didn't want him to be ashamed of her. And spying on people was something her own father disapproved of.

"Are you a Peeping Tom, Rachel?" Pembleton said, leaning forward slightly. "That violates code 534.6(c) of the penal code. I could arrest you for this."

"No! I'm not a Peeping Tom!" Rachel backpedaled then reversed herself. "I mean, yes, sort of, I guess. It's not like I watch people having sex or anything, and anyway, if somebody's drapes are open, if you're just walking by you could see what they're doing, what's the difference if I use binoculars or not?" She folded her arms over her chest.

Pembleton backed off, not wanting to antagonize her. "You must have really liked _Rear Window_," he joked.

"What's that?" Rachel asked.

"Never mind. I was just wondering where you got the idea to spy on people like that from."

Rachel flushed. She practically whispered, "_Harriet the Spy_. I always wanted to be a spy when I grew up. Or a detective. But my parents don't let."

"You're a grown woman, Rachel," Pembleton said gently. "You can apply to the Police Academy if you want. You don't need your parents' permission."

On the outside he was still playing along. On the inside, he was thinking, A police groupie. She just wants to feel like she's a part of things. But why this particular case? Why now?

"You don't understand, okay? I mean, the daughter of Ira and Beth Fishbein does not become a cop. But that's fine, you know? I get it. I'll probably just become a psychologist."

"Did it bother you to see Luther Mahoney get killed? Did you speak to a psychologist afterwards?" Pembleton segued easily.

Rachel looked up sharply. "No. To both questions. I mean, I saw it happen, but only from the back. Luther Mahoney had his back to the window and when he was shot, there was no exit wound. It's not like I saw blood spurting. And I couldn't really see him die. The balcony was blocking my view."


	4. 4

Pembleton blinked. Maybe this girl was telling the truth after all. How else could she know that the bullet didn't exit Mahoney's body? Unless she read the coroner's report. Which was impossible. That information was not given to the public. But she may have known somebody who worked in the morgue who made her a copy of the report. This was still an iffy situation.

He glanced over his shoulder at the mirror in the far wall as though he could see Kellerman and other detectives standing there.

He took a deep breath and looked back at Rachel. His voice was firm as he said, "Tell me exactly what you saw."

Rachel took a breath herself, then started. "I was feeling particularly lazy that day. I didn't get dressed even after lunch. I just lay in my bed and looked out the window. I think maybe I was feeling sorry for myself that I'd missed the application deadlines, but whatever. I heard sirens outside and saw that it wasn't ambulances but cop cars. My first and only thought was that they were there for Luther Mahoney. So I trained my binoculars on his window—"

"Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt, Rachel, but could you explain how is it that you live across the street from Mahoney if you live on Eagle Terrace and he lives on Spruce Street?"

"Sure. Spruce Street is the front entrance of his building. His apartment is in the back of the complex, facing my street."

So far her story added up. It didn't mean she was telling the truth, but it didn't mean that he couldn't find anything to use to easily expose the contradictions in her story and prove that she was lying. It meant that he'd have to work a different angle.

Pembleton nodded for Rachel to go on.

"Like I said, I trained my binoculars on his window. The drapes were wide open. Which I thought meant that I was wrong, that this had nothing to do with him, because if say the cops were coming to bust up some kind of drug deal going on, Luther Mahoney would have closed his drapes, because he's really smart that way. I never once saw him doing anything. If I ever saw a bunch of men walking in with grim expressions on their faces and carrying big bags, I knew it was a drug thing, and I knew I'd be shut out within minutes. Oh, but how I hoped one day he'd be stupid and leave the drapes open so I could see what being a drug lord was really like. You know, so I could use it in my story somehow."

Pembleton almost laughed. They all wished the same thing as this girl did—that Mahoney wouldn't have been so damned smart. But at least he could take consolation that it wasn't like this girl had seen Mahoney do something that all of the cops doing countless hours of surveillance hadn't.


	5. 5

"I kept looking in the hopes that I'd I see something. And I actually did. I saw Luther Mahoney open a safe and start taking money out of it. He was looking totally crazed and that explained to me why he'd forgotten to close the drapes if something was going on—because he wasn't thinking, he was just acting. He was making mistakes."

Pembleton nodded unconsciously. This girl was good, he thought.

"Then someone burst into the apartment behind him, with his gun out. When I read about this story in the newspapers I found out it was a detective named Meldrick Lewis. He came in, and they talked a little, but before I could barely blink, Meldrick Lewis was beating up Luther Mahoney! I was like, ohmigod, I'm watching police brutality!"

Pembleton winced. "Why didn't you call the cops? Or an ambulance?"

That gave Rachel pause, like she hadn't considered that idea until this very moment. "Yeah, I guess that's what I should have done, but I couldn't move. I couldn't take my eyes off this. This was unbelievable. I never saw anyone get beaten up before. And by a cop! Well, no, I didn't know he was a cop at that moment. Wait, did I know? Hold on a second, I messed up the story. Oh, right, of course I knew. I said I heard the sirens, didn't I? Yeah, in my head I knew he was a cop but I didn't actually see his badge. He just didn't look like one of Luther Mahoney's . . . _crew_."

"What happened next?"

"As Meldrick Lewis was beating up Luther Mahoney—I mean, the guy was barely fighting back—Luther Mahoney grabbed Meldrick Lewis's gun! I was totally freaking out now because now I thought maybe there was something I could do, but obviously there wasn't. I was trying to imagine myself doing something heroic that involved sharpshooting, but that's ridiculous. It never even occurred to me to do something simple like call the police.

"But Luther Mahoney isn't shooting Meldrick Lewis, they're talking. Then, two more cops burst in! A man and a woman. Again, only later did I find out their names, but I'll use them now—Michael Kellerman and Terri Stivers. They both run in yelling. They were probably saying that Luther Mahoney should drop his gun—I mean, that's logical, right?—but he wasn't dropping it. I could tell that Luther Mahoney was talking from the way he was moving his jaw even though by now he had turned his back to the window. Before he had been standing in profile and I could see the blood on his face.

"So now Michael Kellerman is talking to Luther Mahoney. Luther Mahoney seems to be letting his guard down, laying down his gun, and for a second I'm thinking, oh man, he's going to press charges against Meldrick Lewis and I'm going to have to testify against a cop, but if nobody knows about me, then I won't do it, I won't come forward. Police brutality is obviously bad, but Luther Mahoney is a drug dealer and a murderer. Like I should sympathize with that?


	6. 6

"That was only a split second thought in my head. I was watching Luther Mahoney's arm very carefully, thinking, okay he's going to drop the gun. And then—" Rachel's voice broke. "—And then, the muscles in his arm tighten, another split second and I know he's about to raise the gun and shoot Meldrick Lewis and—" Her voice broke again and her eyes filled with tears. "—And I was screaming and for a second I'm thinking I'm going to watch a cop get murdered and I'm just watching and I can't do anything and why can't I put the binoculars down but I can't, I can't, I can't put them down—

"He almost shot Meldrick Lewis and then Michael Kellerman shot Luther Mahoney and he fell down and Meldrick Lewis wasn't dead and I started crying and—and, fine!—it did bother me to see someone get shot, even crap like Luther Mahoney!"

Rachel put her head down on her arms and cried and cried.

Dumbfounded, Pembleton reached into his pants pockets, pulled out a handkerchief, and stuffed it into Rachel's hand. She took it but didn't look up.

"Um, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," Pembleton said, then left the room, nearly stumbling over his feet.

There, standing behind the two-way mirror, were Lewis, Kellerman, Howard, Munch, and Bayliss, all looking as shell-shocked as Pembleton.

Frank recovered first. "Obviously she believes what she's saying, but it can't be true. I won't take this statement and enter it into evidence. She's a nut, Howard, I'll get her to retract her statement before lunch."

"How do you know she's lying?" Kellerman asked. "Maybe I copped to a lie. Stivers was standing behind me. Maybe she didn't have a clear line of sight. Meldrick, if you back me on this, it'll be this girl's word against Stivers's. It'll be clean.

"It was clean," Kellerman said, his voice growing confident. "It was clear all along and Stivers was the one who put doubts in my head, in your head, Meldrick. Is it so hard to believe that I saved your life, Meldrick?"

"Naw, Mikey, that ain't so hard to believe," Lewis said. "I was behind you. But Stivers was so sure."

"Kellerman, you're grasping at straws. This girl has no credibility. The prosecution would tear her down in five seconds," Pembleton said, his tone brooking no discussion.

But Kellerman argued anyway. "Really? The way you have? She may be crying, but she knows what she saw."

"I haven't yet begun, Kellerman. There is a chink, a flaw somewhere. She's a police groupie, she's a Kellerman groupie, she's got an ulterior motive somewhere that I was find and I will show her that she was imagining things. She will cave."

"Do you have it in for Kellerman, Frank?" Bayliss piped up. "Maybe this girl is telling the truth."

"Thanks, Tim," Kellerman said.

"Everybody lies," Pembleton said darkly, and stormed back into the interrogation room.


	7. 7

By now Rachel had calmed down a bit and was blowing her nose in Frank's handkerchief. She smiled a little and said, "I'll take it home and wash it and bring it back."

"That's all right," Pembleton said. "I don't care about the handkerchief. I care about finding out—WHY ARE YOU LYING TO ME!"

Rachel let out a screech and cowered away from Pembleton even though he was standing five feet from her. She burst into tears again, and said, "I'm not lying!"

Pembleton took his seat from before and looked contrite. "Oh, Rachel, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. Of course you're not lying. Why would you lie? You came here out of the goodness of your heart, and here I am, yelling at you. I've been having a really stressful day. Can you understand that?"

Rachel nodded.

"So, we're cool, we can talk some more?"

"Sure," Rachel said quietly. "But I don't understand what you think I'm lying about."

"Well, maybe not lying as much as mistaken," Pembleton clarified.

"Mistaken about what?"

"Haven't you been following this story? Isn't that why you came in now, because of what's been going on?"

"Actually, no, I haven't been following the story. I came in now because it's coming up the year anniversary of Luther Mahoney's death and people are talking about memorials and stuff for him. I couldn't believe that anyone thinks he's a good person. It made me remember what I saw. Not that I ever forgot, but I didn't think about it for the longest time. When you're home every day the weeks and months seem to flow together one into the other until you're not ever sure what the date is. All this talk about memorials made me think that it was my civic duty to say that I was a witness and I saw something. It's like jury duty. One summer when I was in college all of my friends got jury duty except for me and I really wanted to also, so after I graduated I actually called and asked them to call me. They did and I got put on a case. I didn't really like it, though. Having the power of life or death, so to speak, over someone. Oh, it was a minor case, but the whole time I felt like I didn't really know the whole story, that there was a lot more going on that the cops and lawyers weren't telling us and I didn't want to convict without knowing the whole story.

"I did vote to convict in the end, but I didn't feel good about it."

Pembleton tried to cut through all of Rachel's ramblings. "So you're saying you haven't heard anything about Det. Kellerman."

"No, why? Did something happen to him?"

"Nothing, forget it. Did you come here to speak to Det. Kellerman, to meet him? To talk to him about this experience you both sort of share?"


	8. 8

"No." Rachel frowned. "I didn't think of that. I just came here and asked to speak to whomever was in charge. Do you think I should speak to Michael Kellerman?"

"What do you know about Det. Kellerman? You aren't related to him, by any chance?"

"I don't know much at all, just what I read in the paper. Of course I'm not related to him. He's Irish and I'm Jewish. Of course we're not related." Rachel laughed.

Pembelton dismissed Rachel naivete, and moved on. "Do you have any relatives that are cops or work in some capacity related to the police department, Rachel?"

"No. My dad's a tax attorney and my mom is a librarian. And none of my other family live in Baltimore. My parents moved here when they got married."

"I see. Going back to Det. Kellerman. Did you see a picture of him in the newspaper? Do you think he's a good-looking man?"

Rachel's eyes moved up and to the right, showing that she was thinking back, trying to remember. "Yeah, I guess he's kind of cute. He's no Brad Pitt, of course, and he's like ages older than me, but I guess he's cute."

The group behind the mirror broke up with laughter. Meldrick slapped Kellerman on the back as he wheezed.

Munch raised his eyebrows and said, "I should be taking notes. This girl has killer material."

"Maybe you have a little crush on Det. Kellerman," Pembleton suggested.

"No, I have a crush on Brad Pitt. God, that man is hot. Did you see him without his shirt on in _Thelma & Louise_?" She sighed happily.

"Right. Um, so, the newspapers. Why didn't you go to the newspaper to tell your story?"

"What would be the point of that? They already know the story. What could I have added?"

Pembleton's brow tightened for a moment. He was getting precisely nowhere. Rachel had an answer for everything. It was time to play hardball.

"Rachel, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think you saw Mahoney raising his gun to shoot Det. Lewis. I think you must have incorporated it into what you think you saw after you read about it in the newspaper," Pembleton said in a reasonable voice.

"I was watching pretty carefully. I know what I saw. I can tell if someone's about to drop a gun or raise it."

"Do you like guns? Read about them much?"

"All girls like guns. Well, except for liberals and lesbians. It's a phallic symbol, so naturally everyone who likes phalluses likes guns. Why do you think men like their guns so much?" Rachel grinned. She didn't know what sort of weird discussion this was, but it was always fun to talk about hot guys and sex.

Laughter broke out again behind the mirror.

"Howard, you care to comment on this young lady's theory regarding women and guns?" Munch said.

"Yeah, Sarge," Bayliss said.

"Knock it off, or I'll make you go back to your desks," Kay said. "I'm sure most of you have reports to finish."


	9. 9

"You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Rachel," Pembleton said.

"_Ceci n'est pas une pipe_," Rachel said.

"What the hell are those two talking about now?" Lewis said.

"I have no idea," Bayliss said.

"So you're saying you do like guns, then?" Pembleton said.

"I dunno, I guess. You know, maybe I could show you what I saw. Then you'd believe me. Here, give me your gun, and—"

"That's a good idea—a demonstration—but I'm not giving you my gun. Use your binoculars instead."

Rachel looked disappointed and for a moment seemed inclined to pout and try to get her way through being cute or girly, but that quickly disappeared. She said, "I could do that, but it wouldn't really be too accurate of a recreation, would it?"

Damn, Frank thought. Wordlessly, he took his gun out of its holster. He slid out the clip and checked the chamber to make sure it was empty. He put the clip into the pocket formerly occupied by his handkerchief and handed the gun butt-first to Rachel. She took it gingerly and looked surprised at how heavy it was, making it clear that she had no firsthand experience with weapons.

"I can stand up, right?" Rachel asked timidly. "Can I stand in front of the table so you can really see?"

"Sure," Pembleton said. He watched as she walked around the table, her hand curled around the grip of the gun, her index finger around the trigger.

"Okay, here's what I'm going to do: first I'll show it to you from the front, then from the back, so you can see what I saw."

"Go ahead."

"Okay." Rachel held the gun, pointing it at the wall. "So the wall is Meldrick Lewis. I'm Luther Mahoney. I've got the gun on Meldrick Lewis. You're Michael Kellerman. You come in and put your gun on me. You talk to me and I get the idea that maybe I should lower my gun." Rachel lowered her arm but kept her elbow crooked. The hand holding the gun wavered up and down slightly so that sometimes it was pointed at the ground, sometimes pointed at the wall. "Notice that I'm standing kind of unsteadily. Luther Mahoney was shaky from the beating, I could see that. But all of a sudden he goes still, like he's gathering some inner strength. But to contrast the rest of his body going slack, his arm tenses, and that's how I could tell that he was about to make a sudden move to raise the gun and shoot Meldrick Lewis. And luckily before he can, Michael Kellerman shoots him. And see, he only lets go of the gun after a few seconds. He had a good grip on the gun."

Rachel demonstrated this, and then fell to the floor, only letting the gun go in the last second before she hit the floor.

She got up and said, "Imagine if the scenario had been different. Imagine if Luther Mahoney were intending to drop the gun, watch how it would be instead."


	10. 10

Rachel trained the gun on the wall again. She looked at Pembleton standing in for Kellerman, then let her arm drop to her side completely. The gun rested against her leg. It dangled partially out of her uncurled palm. "Bang!" she yelled and started to fall down, the gun spinning slightly as it hit the floor before she did.

Before Pembleton could comment, Rachel jumped up and repeated the whole thing from the other way, giving the group watching from the behind the mirror a good view of the proceedings.

Rachel was on the floor—the dirty, cold floor—and almost didn't look like she wanted to get up. She looked at Pembleton from upside down and gave him a crooked grin. "Thank you, Det. Pembleton, for listening to me. Maybe I should have talked to a psychologist when it first happened because I really do feel so much better now, but hey, 'physician heal thyself' never seems to really happen, you know?"

"Get up and give me my gun," Pembleton said shortly.

Immediately the grin died in Rachel's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make fun of anybody or anything. I just want you to believe me."

"I bel—I'll be right back," Pembleton said. He took the gun from Rachel's hand and didn't wait to see if she got up or not. He slammed the door on his way out of the box and went the group of detectives, looking at him expectantly.

"You were about to say you believed her, and then you stopped," Kellerman said quietly. "Do you want my head that badly?"

Pembleton was equally subdued. "You do realize that if we enter this girl's statement into the case file, we have to bring Lewis up on charges of use of excess force."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Lewis protested, but Pembleton went on.

"She flat out used the words 'police brutality.' It seems to me that Rachel Fishbein came here with a troubled psyche but no ulterior motives. At this point she would testify _against_ Lewis as quickly as she would testify _for_ Kellerman. She's right. If Mahoney intended to drop the gun, he would have dropped it right away. The shooting was clean, but somebody's going to take a fall here. I won't talk to Gee until you make a decision."

"Say that last bit again," Kellerman said, his voice hoarse.

"I won't talk to Gee—"

"No, the sentence before that."

"The shooting was clean, but somebody's—"

"Just the first four words. Please."

"The shooting was clean," Pembleton said.

There was a pause, then:

"The shooting was clean," Howard echoed.

"The shooting was clean," Bayliss echoed.

"The shooting was clean," Munch echoed.

"The shooting was clean," Lewis echoed.

Kellerman's eyes filled with tears. The shooting was clean. He knew it all along. Now all someone had to do was tell Terri Stivers. And it would be over for him. He didn't even care if he took the fall for it as long as he could protect Lewis from the excess force charge. It was too late for him to get his fellow detectives' confidence in him back, but at least he could go out with a clear conscience knowing the shooting was clean, knowing that they knew that the shooting was clean—that he was clean.

The shooting was clean.


	11. 11

There was a pause, then Kellerman said: "I'll sign those papers now, Frank. I'll take the fall. I shot him, I made this happen."

"Good man," Frank said.

He and Kellerman started to head back to interrogation room one, when suddenly Lewis called out: "Wait!" and they turned back to look at him. Lewis glanced around at his fellow detectives and said, "Mikey is clean. This is my fault. I'll take the fall."

"Meldrick, really, it's okay," Kellerman insisted.

"Naw, Mikey, it's not. Tell me this: after you told Mahoney to drop the gun, how come he didn't do it? How come he said, 'What are you going to do, read me my rights?' What did he mean by that?" Lewis said.

"I don't know. I thought he was . . . mocking me. Like he was saying that I couldn't touch him. That I'd read him his rights, arrest him, and he'd be back on the streets in twenty-four hours," Kellerman said.

"That's not what he meant."

"What did he mean, then?" Pembleton said.

Lewis swallowed. "Like the girl said, I was beating on Mahoney. But she couldn't tell what we had been saying before that. What none of youse know is that I went in to his apartment with my gun out, Mahoney put his hands up and he said that he was surrendering. He said that he was going to let me take him into custody without a fight. But I started that fight anyhow.

"Without cuffing him first. (That's why he was able to get my gun.)

"And that's what he meant when he asked if you would read him his rights after he dropped the gun, Mikey. He thought if he dropped the gun, you'd wale on his ass just like I did.

"He thought he was protecting himself.

"He wasn't going to drop the gun no matter what you said.

"He was definitely going to shoot someone. Probably me.

"So your shooting him was clean all along, Mikey, and I was dirty. I was dirty from the minute I walked into Mahoney's apartment. This is my fault."

Lewis hung his head.

"I'll understand if you hate me after all this."

Everyone was stunned by Lewis's confession. Nobody could meet anybody else's eyes.

Pembleton came out of his shock first. "Kellerman, Lewis, we're going to see Gee. Lewis, you're going to repeat exactly what you said just now. And I am going to say that shooting was clean. Got that?"

Kellerman and Lewis nodded dumbly.

"Howard, maybe you could talk to the girl, get her a soda or something because I'm going to have to take down her statement. She may be here for a while," Pembleton said.

"Sure, Frank," Kay said.

The group disbursed to their respective corners, their minds awhirl with the idea that the situation was turned on its head. It seemed that Kellerman was going to be to keep his badge after all.

Kellerman could barely think coherently. The voices were repeating themselves in his mind:

Pembleton: Kellerman, you're clean.

Lewis: I'm dirty.

You're clean.

I'm dirty.

Clean.

Dirty.

Clean.Dirty.Clean.Dirty.Clean.Dirty.Clean.Dirty. . . .

Clean.


End file.
